Ocean Way HR5
Ocean Way’s newest studio speakers bring the sound of ’70s horn‑loaded mains to the nearfield monitor format.
Who says all nearfield monitors are the same? The subject of this review is the Ocean Way HR5 active nearfield monitor and it’s very much not run‑of‑the‑mill, either in terms of its appearance or electro‑acoustic design. It’s an unusual one there is no doubt. Before I get on to why the HR5 looks the way it does, and what that means, perhaps a little Ocean Way background would be appropriate.
The Ocean Way name has been around in pro audio since the mid‑1970s, when teenage musician and audio enthusiast Allen Sides began building speakers and recording bands in a rented garage in Los Angeles. Sides named his business Ocean Way after the street in which the garage was located. Outgrowing the garage, Sides rented space at the United Western Recorders studio on Sunset Boulevard, where his recording and speaker‑building business then grew t